gotten packed on the rails already. One-eleven tried to keep
on without a pick and shovel gang. Got derailed on a curve just below
Crestline and went over. One-twelve's crew got the men up. The plow's
smashed to nothing. Fifty-three thousand dollars' worth of junk now.
Wait a minute--here's Denver."

Again one of those agonizing waits, racking to the two men whose future
depended largely upon the happenings atop the range. Far on the other
side, fighting slowly upward, was a freight train containing flatcar
after flatcar loaded with the necessary materials of a large sawmill.
True, June was yet two months away. But months are short when there is
work to do, when machinery must be installed, and when contracts are
waiting. Every day, every hour, every minute counted now. And as if
in answer to their thoughts, the operator straightened, with a little
gesture of hopelessness.

"Guess it's all off," came at last. "The general superintendent in
Denver's on the wire. Says to back up everything to Tollifer,
including the plows, and give up the ghost."

"Give it up?" Houston stared blankly at the telegrapher. "But that's
not railroading!"

"It is when you're with a concern that's all but broke," answered the
operator. "It's cheaper for this old wooden-axle outfit to quit than
to go on fighting--"

"That mean six weeks eef this storm keep up two days longer!" Ba'tiste
broke in excitedly. "By to-morrow morning, ever' snowshed, he will be
bank-full of snow. The track, he will be four inches in ice. Six
week--this country, he can not stand it! Tell him so on the telegraph!
Tell him the cattle, he will starve! Peuff! No longer do I think of
our machinery! Eef it is los'--we are los'. But let eet go. Say to
heem nothing of that. Say to heem that there are the cattle that will
starve, that in the stores there is not enough provision. That--"

"I know. I'll call Denver. But I don't know what chance there is--the
road's been waiting for a chance to go into bankruptcy, anyway--since
this new Carrow Point deal is about through. They haven't got any
money--you know that, Ba'tiste. It's cheaper for them to shut down for
six weeks than to try to keep running. That fifty thousand they lost
on that snowplow just about put the crimp in 'em. It might cost a
couple of hundred thousand more to keep the road open. What's the
result? It's easier to quit. But I'll try 'em--"

He turned to the key and hammered